To "86" something

Sorry for my ignorance but what is 86?

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Remove, delete, destroy.

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Wow, what an insider private joke or something.
Ok, it means delete, whatever the origins, too many words I don’t get. :thinking:
@HibiscusKazeneko, please just say delete next time. :sweat_smile:

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jesus2099, it is an American expression, not too commonly used but I have heard it before.

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I just had to explain “I rest my case” to someone from Germany.

I hate speaking to the overseas call centers for that very reason. Some of them speak very good English (better than some Americans I have come across), but they lack the little things.
In fairness, when I get overseas calls -
私の舌が捻れる
Watashi no shita ga nejireru
Meine zunge wird verdreht
מיין צונג ווערט טוויסטיד
meyn tsung vert tvistid
my tongue gets twisted.

But here we are not an oversea call centre aimed at Americans.
MB is international and you are just lucky that English was chosen.
So English natives should just refrain from using too much idiomatic expressions if they want to keep beng understood properly. :wink::+1:

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On the plus side, we all learned something new today. :slight_smile:

But – especially if you want help – it is better to write clearly for as wide an audience as possible.

Don’t overestimate my memory, it’s all forgotten the day after (no will to remember anyway).
I am back in the topic and discovered again 86→delete.

The code recently reached the headlines following a US restauranteur’s ejection of a high profile customer and the event, recriminations, justifications and opinions there-on going viral on US social media in a highly charged and highly politicized atmosphere…

An older US phrase describing the ejection of a customer from an establishment would be that the customer had been given “the bum’s rush”. I find this phrase more demeaning of the customer, poetic and graphically descriptive what with “bum” in Australian English referring to the buttocks.

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I’m American, but I’ve always interpreted that phrase that way (probably because it’s often phrased “a bum rush”, which is less clear in intent). It was only as an adult that I realized it probably meant bum-as-in-vagrant not bum-as-in-buttocks. But I still have to consciously correct it in my head.

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I didn’t realise that US English included bum-as-in-buttocks.
Over here near Antarctica that meaning seems to have been filtered down by distance and then overwhelmed by

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I think they both sound kind of dated, but the “buttocks” usage less so. I’d certainly only use it in that sense, but even then only in a “I’m going to use this word because I’m trying to be super polite” sort of way. I might go for “tush” in those circumstances, too, although that has its own connotations.

Now I’m musing on the “politeness” of different words for buttocks, compared across regions. :laughing:

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Since we’re bumrushing…

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